Piety, and Poesy Contracted, In a Poetick Miscellanie of Sacred Poems. By Tho: Jordan |
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An Elegie on the Death of Mr. John Steward.
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 | Piety, and Poesy |  |
An Elegie on the Death of Mr. John Steward.
If a sad Stranger may presume to mourn,And build (in Verse) an Altar ore an Urn,
If Tears that com from Heart-instructed Eyes
Appear no despicable Sacrifice;
If you'll conceive Sorrow can keep her Court
In Souls that have the Cause but by Report,
Or if the loss of virtue you believe
Can make its Lover (though a Stranger) grieve:
Admit my Wet Oblation which imparts
Something that shews th' effects of mourning Hearts.
You who have had no Tears for your own Crimes,
And cannot vent a Sigh for these sad Times,
Within whose juiceless Eyes was never seen,
Drops but proceeding from a tickled Spleen:
And you who (valor-harden'd) never cou'd
Bestow one stream to see a Sea of Bloud,
Though of your Sons, or Brothers; Come to me
Ile teach you true grief in this Elegie,
Steward is dead, a man whom Truth, and Fame
With Virtue, ever shall imbalm his Name;
Learning, and yet not wittier than wise;
Religious without Faction, and could be
Courteous without the Court Hypocrisie,
Just to his Friends, not Hatefull to his Foes,
For he had none, though Virtue seldom goes
By Envie unattended; He was one
In whom appear'd much of Perfection,
But Death (the due of Nature) must be paid,
Beauty, and Strength must in a Grave be laid:
So hasty and unwilling to defer
The time, is our great grim, Commissioner;
Then let us mourn, let our true Sorrow swim,
That he is not with us, or we with him:
'Tis Good to mourn for Good, as to Regard,
Or pity, is a kinde of a Reward:
His latest precious Breathings, had respect
To nothing more than divine Dialect,
Which he committed to his mourning Friends;
In Exhortations for their better Ends
Unlocks his breast, which onely could express
Aspiring Prayers, and pious pensiveness;
Thus like a Traveller (that will not stray
To any talk, but's journey, and his way)
Our Peregrine discourseth, till at last
As Tapers, near their end give greatest blast,
He dies, and all the Duty I can do
Is on his Herse to fix a Line or two.
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